[GS] Expanded concepts: Appeal

[circeus]

(Previous threads: Conservation and National Parks, Corporations and economic victory, Uniques, Pillaging)

I've always found it annoying how some of the terrain features that are typically considering the most important to protect are treated as the most undesirable terrain features by the appeal system, so here's a thought about adjusting this.

Terrain features:

• Flat base terrain tiles have a base appeal of 0.
• Base hill tiles have a base appeal of 1.
• Passable features other than the Floodplain give +1 to adjacent tiles: Woods, Oasis, Rainforest, Geothermal Fissure, Volcanic Soil, Reef and Marsh. Unimproved resources are also features and grant a +1 bonus too (which is negated by most improvements), including Ancient Ruins and Shipwrecks.
  
• No terrain feature has a negative appeal.

Improvements and districts:

• All non unique improvements except farms, pastures and railroads have a -1 appeal penalty.
  
  • Farm and pastures do not generate negative appeal because of pastoral nostalgia in the modern era.
• In addition to the base rule districts (Industrial Zone, Encampment, Aerodrome, Spaceport), the following districts also give a -1 penalty: Harbor, Neighborhood, City Center.
• Buildings in these districts other than the City Center and Neighborhood expand the range of the penalty by one each. For City Centers and Neighborhoods, the range increase for every six pop.
• Instead of the base game bonuses, the following districts give +1 appeal: Aqueduct, Canal, Dam, Entertainment District, Water Park and Wonders.
  • It could be argued that unique districts which do not give a+1 bonus might gain one.
• All other bonuses are the same.

Basically, the idea is that natural areas and features should never have intrinsic negative appeal, but this is compensated by harsher punishment for human presence and interventions.

 

[Sostratus]

You seem to be conflating Appeal with natural beauty.
Whereas the FXS implementation seems to take it to be a more loose human desirability. (See: wonders, city parks, etc.) There is definitely a natural beauty component with mountains, water, etc. But ultimately appeal was mostly used for tourism and neighborhoods and seaside resorts, which are all human centric things and thus people not liking eg swamps very much plays a role.